Tuesday, April 22, 2014

CLIFFIE STONE "COOL COWBOY"

("Better Than The Beatles" is back on-line)As a companion piece to the "How The West Was Swung" album by Vegas crooner Pete Brady that we posted here a few days ago, here's another unlikely cowboy/modern jazz combination collection. Some of the same Western standards that Brady interpreted are featured here, as well. But this one comes from the other side of the fence: Cliffie Stone wasn't a Rat Packer heading out west like Brady, but a major country music figure (Capital Records A&R man, radio and tv host, and some recording success as well) putting down his lariat, and picking up a martini glass. This album is fun one, but it's def not as hip as "How The West Was Swung" - the jazz on songs like "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" are more Dixieland than bebop, and the vocals are by a pretty white-bread co-ed vocal choir. Still, Stone's take on The Sons of The Pioneers classic "Cool Water" swings like a rusty saloon door, dad. And dig the nutty cha-cha version of "Don't Fence Me In." Better yet are the originals, like the title song, a hysterical number about a cowboy so cool, he'll "build a dude ranch on the moon." The like-minded "Cool Cow Boogie," concerns a hep-cat who's "got a knocked-out western accent with a Harlem touch."CLIFFIE STONE "COOL COWBOY"1 Cool Cowboy2 The Streets of Laredo3 Don't Fence Me In Cha-Cha4 Tumblin Tumbleweeds5 Cool Cow Boogie6 High Noon7 Jingle Jangle Jingle8 Blood On The Saddle9 Along The Navajo Trail10 Cool Water11 Sierra Sue12 Ragtime Cowboy Joe